


circle of pearls

by waterlit



Category: Alice in Wonderland (Movies - Burton)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Drama, F/M, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon, Reincarnation, Romance, Tragedy, old fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-15
Updated: 2017-10-15
Packaged: 2019-01-07 06:56:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12227865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waterlit/pseuds/waterlit
Summary: They while their lives away, age after age after age. And then—they meet again before the end.





	circle of pearls

The wind blows icy cold against Tarrant's sallow cheeks. 

Mirana studies him from across the table, her eyes clipped, whether from the bitter cold or some hidden agenda, he does not know. The tea is not doing anything to warm either of them up, and only his reverence for Her Majesty prompts Tarrant to emerge from his despair for a second, to remark that the Queen does not have to suffer with him out in the cold.

"Suffer with you?" Mirana smiles softly in the wintry dusk, and catches a tiny snowflake in her pale hand. "This is not suffering, my dear. There is nothing more beautiful than acres upon acres of snow and the wind howling across the land. This is the kingdom where we live."

The Hatter turns a tear-stained glance toward Mirana.

"Tarrant!" Mirana says. "Please. Alice wouldn't want to see you like this—"

"And Alice is not coming back." Tarrant clamps the lid of the teapot down on the Dormouse.

_The girl of his dreams—his mad, mad dreams—had stepped into the future with a drink of potent wishes in her hands. At that point, he had really wanted to grasp her wispy form in his broad fingers and beg her to stay. Had almost done so. But she was gone and he was not and he stood alone beside the White Queen on the dusty terrain of the Great Battle…_

Mirana sighs as she takes pity on the squealing Dormouse and releases it from the teapot. "She will be back someday. Every encounter will be different, but in the end, each permutation will slowly draw the two of you towards the end of the labyrinth you have been treading for centuries!"

"She will?" His voice is raspy, like the croak of a frog which had just emerged from the dusty depths of an abandoned well.

Mirana smiles again, her dark eyes flashing midnight black. Tarrant watches those dark, painted lips open and close and felt like a fish listening from underwater.

"She will be back," Mirana says. "You must remember that. Do not forget—do no forget."

"No." He looks at Mirana and twiddles his hat between his calloused thumbs.

Mirana smiles encouragingly, but he can see the itsy-bitsy bit of impatience tugging at the edges of her eyes. "You have made a promise to her, and she to you; you will meet again before the end."

"We will?" Tarrant asks, not quite believing her words, because he really truly wants to, and because there is nothing quite like hope gutted.

"You will, as surely as you have met and then been torn asunder ever since the birth of the sun." Mirana pats his arm. With that, she takes off into the white mist curling around her palace.

The Dormouse pinches Tarrant's wrist. "I told you so!"

* * *

 

When they first meet, it is not yet November (time is not reckoned in months yet, nor in eternities).

He is a man and she a woman and they stand together at the cusp of the infant world and lock themselves into each other's embrace. He builds her a hut and she stokes the fire and sweeps the floor and they make the most out of each other. He hunts mammoths with the other men and she stitches animal skins together to keep away the winter cold like the other women.

They are happy in a lonely land that now lies broken under the sea.

Then the barbarians come from across the sea and he, with the other men, dash out to fight. But first he presses a string of pearls into her clammy hands before leaving, taking the time to fumble a chaste kiss and stroke her hair tenderly like never before.

"I will be back," he promises. "I will. We will meet again before the end!"

And then he isn't there anymore. She sinks down and weeps, clutching at the air and wishing he's still beside her.

She doesn't weep when his body is brought back and laid in state along with the other fallen heroes, but when the pyre is lit she leaps straight into the fire with the pearls left buried in some distant corner at the edge of the world.

* * *

 

When they next discover each other, he is garbed in long robes and she tends the everlasting holy fire as a priestess dedicated to the goddess of the hearth. They are from two different spheres, and never the twain shall meet.

But he walks past the forbidden temple and sees the dark-haired girl bending over, her skirts sweeping the floor. Her eyes are lined with doubt and misery; loneliness is her constant companion and tears string her eyes. He helps her and she gives him a blinding smile that pierces his heart. He hands a string of pearls to the lovely young woman and from there, everything goes downhill.

They meet under the sacred tree at midnight and explore each other; he kisses her and tastes a whiff of the cold air from the beginning of the world.

"You are very familiar to me, somehow," he says. "As if we met before, a very long time ago. But—I do not remember. Do you, perhaps?"

She merely smiles and leans into his embrace, her body warm against his.

But they are caught when her belly swells round and big like watermelons at the end of the rainy season. The priests and priestesses cry foul, delving into ancient laws and tracking his crime. He is quartered and drawn and hung and cast off the high walls for committing religious treason.

She tiptoes out of her cell when night falls and sees his dead body perched atop the city walls.

She clutches her pearls and slides headlong into a nearby well. Never mind if she poisons the water—what happens after death won't hurt her. They find her the next morning, bloated with sin and chock full of water and they hang her upside down from the wall, alongside the body of her dead lover.

* * *

 

They reprise their roles as tragic lovers sometime again in the future. She is but a simple village girl with curls that glisten in the sun, and he is but a farmer with a farm to tend.

They meet under the sun, and they chat and he offers to her a pretty string of pearls, the dowry his sainted mother left behind. She blushes and shyly accepts; he courts her with bluebells and smiles and handsome eyes that lavish praise on her.

But fate is relentless in her pursuit of her victims, and life is vicious in its entrapment of man. The soldiers march in with their proud swords and loud trumpets, as they have so many times throughout history. She hides and is taken by enemy fire. He finds her hidden in a bush, insides spilling out and he kisses her full on the mouth and tells her to wait for him on the other side.

Her eyes close; he is alone with a battered corpse. In time to come he turns himself into a holy man, a guru with flaming red hair. He walks the earth and feeds on happy memories and waits for his end to come.

It does come, in due time, but his days are long and his eyes are dim and his ears hear only her dainty whispers like the wind in the cornfield. These days are hard to live through, but he clasps the pearls he gave her close to his heart, kissing them with chapped lips and prays for them to meet again before the end.

* * *

 

"Tell me," he asks, "tell me, darling, do you love me?"

_Because I could break the sky open for you, pluck the stars from where they hang, if you'd just say the words._

Now he is a hatter whose days are filled with straw and felt and cloth, and she is but a pretty village girl who has caught his roving eye. The girl looks up; her hair, dainty as the morning stars, glints as it catches the snatches of warm sunlight dappling through the leaves. She smiles thoughtfully and winds her fragile fingers through his coppery hair.

"You know the answer, I think."

"I'll make you a beautiful hat," he says to her, "with roses and everything you love."

"I can't pay for that!"

"It's a gift to my love." He winks at her and envelops her in his warm arms.

She laughs and falls lightly into his embrace.

* * *

 

It is winter, and the ice trembles down chimneys. She visits him in his little shack and finds him among his hats.

Curious, she flips through the hats. "Will you ever stop being a hatter?"

"No." He grins at her, his green eyes dashing. Flashing.

"Why are we in love?" she asks, breaking the silence imposed by the staccato _tick tock tick tock_ of the clock.

"We are. That is all that matters."

"Why is a raven like a writing desk?" she asks and turns her pretty face up to him.

"I don't know…" He looks at her, worried.

She attempts the question again. "Why is a raven like a writing desk?"

"I don't know!"

"Why? Why?"

A long pause settles, like the dust in a desert in the quiet between sandstorms.

"Perhaps…"

"No, no, don't say it!" She stops him before he can answer. "I don't know what came over me."

"Do you want tea?"

"No, no, I'll leave now. I promised to drop by the church this evening."

The wind blows the door shut, and it occurs to him, as her golden hair disappears into the white wind, that he forgot to kiss her goodbye.

* * *

 

It is January when he next whips up the courage to visit her. Beating back grief and distilling sorrow he crawls his way to her grave, the stone under which she will sleep for all eternity.

 _I should not have let you go in the wind_ , he thinks, _I should have persuaded you to stay!_

But the dead are unloving and whisper only taunts in the ears of those who seek them.

The torments of the years break him through the lonesome days. It is the time for life, but he decays, withers, teeters.

The children call out, "Strange freak, strange freak!" 

He looks at them. Shouts. "Why is a raven like a writing desk?"

His shouts carry for miles around, but when he looks, all the windows are shuttered. No answer comes back, but somewhere beyond the stars he can see her winking mockingly at him.

* * *

 

He digs and digs, looking for roots, hiding from the swords and sharp points that have hurt him at least twice. The baying of hounds spurs him on; long fingernails crusted with mud and painted the colour of the sunset force their way through layers upon layers of caked dust. Then he feels it; cold air bursting forth from within the earth.

A chasm opens, and he falls through. He screams and expects to breathe his last, though there is nothing he can hear but the whizzing of the air; there is nothing he can see but the empty black surrounding him. He awaits the crack that will break his spine.

But it doesn't come. When he awakes a dormouse is sitting and looking at him, and a lovely woman draped in white smiles at him as he tries to sit up in a bed far more comfortable than any he has ever seen.

"Who're you? Where am I?"

"I am the White Queen," the vision in white says gently. "And you fell through the rabbit hole, right into Underland."

"Underland!" He looks shocked, as well he should be, never having heard of this particular place.

"Underland, yes, that is what I said. Who are you?"

"I…" he stares wonderingly at his hands, which are now clean of dirt. "I'm the Hatter."

"Welcome to Underland, Hatter."

That is how he comes to be wrapped up in the matters of Underland, with the light of the real sun shafting above his red, red hair.

* * *

 

_And it will come to pass…_

In this life she is Alice and he is the Hatter who has lived without the companionship of Time for eons and eons.

Round about the table he goes, tipping steaming tea into cups (and oh, he hates how the teapot never empties!), teasing the Dormouse and jibing the Cat. But he never feels whole enough to seek Time's forgiveness; _I will wait till my darling comes again_.

She skips in her dress and tumbles down the same rabbit hole ( _same old, same old_ ) one fine day.

When they finally meet, he looks up from the teacup and gapes at her fair face. She is still a child, true, but he knows deep down that it is her who has always been the lady of his dreams and queen of his unchanging heart.

"Who are you?" he asks, for even the obvious are sometimes not as they seem.

"I'm Alice."

He could have jumped for joy, had the Dormouse not started breaking plates and throwing scones. He chases the Dormouse around and around in a pretty little circle, and Alice plops down into an available chair.

He feels a veil falling over him; it dulls his senses and keeps his mind wholly on Alice. Has she always been this intriguing? His memory stirs through eternity, back to the days at the edge of the world. A tiny little something, a seedling perhaps, of love rekindled, blossoms in his lonely heart, and her eyes, too, glitter with a strange fire.

It hurts when she leaves.

It hurts even more when he is called before the Queen of Hearts and told to give evidence that might potentially deliver Alice to the hands of Death.

He loves, therefore he lies.

When night falls and his wounds hurt as he lies face down back at the meadow, he salvages his hurt with the memory of seeing Alice going away back to her world, back to safety and security and liberty.

* * *

 

She is not amused when he stuffs her into a porcelain teapot.

Pushing slightly upon the lid, she clamours to be let out, but is shushed by his hurried explanation. When the soldiers leave and she suitably attires herself, she finds that she remembers the Hatter as he was.

He walks her as far as he could, his heart _thumpthumpthumping_ against his veins, and she finds that she rather likes his eccentric company.

"Why is a raven like a writing desk?" he asks her, fully aware that she cannot remember the trappings of the past.

"I don't know. Why?"

"I don't know either." His face falls. _Because she—you didn't tell me the answer._

* * *

 

The Jabberwocky is a strange bird, with glistening scales and eyes that ooze venom. How could his delicate Alice stand against those polished wings and screeching cries?

The battle is a long one; it turns the skies black, streaked red at the sides, dusting the horizon with tears and an epiphany of despair and futile hate.

Then it's over and she comes to him, hands shyly tucked behind her.

Mirana too comes over to deliver the crushing blow with a bottle of potent liquid.

Alice takes it.

"Won't you stay?" he asks pleadingly, a thousand questions in his bright green eyes.

"I have some matters to settle. I will be back!"

She disappears in a whirl of dust, and he can hardly see anymore for the tears pooling in his eyes.

* * *

 

"Hatter!" Alice runs toward him, looking more radiant, more beautiful, more _his_ than ever.

"You came back!" Tarrant sweeps her into a deep embrace.

"I said I would return," Alice says as she tangles her fingers into his hair, lips pressing against the sides of his jaw. "I've missed you so. I've travelled the seven seas, and to be sure, there is no place like Underland. Where my heart is."

Tarrant laughs at that. "Why is a raven like a writing desk?"

"I have a theory on that. But it must wait. Because I think I found something that has belonged to us since the beginning." Alice draws a pearl necklace from her pocket. "Remember this?"

"You've found it!" Tarrant takes her hands in his. "This way," he says, "Mirana will want to know that you're here to stay."

And so they go—slowly, surely, hand-in-hand. 

_We have met before the end._

**Author's Note:**

> First posted on FFN in June 2010 and greatly inspired by Resmiranda's fic "Orobouros" posted over on FFN in the Inuyasha fandom. 
> 
> This piece was honestly riddled with errors and it was such a pain fixing them. Especially the tense errors. I'm not sure I caught all of them, but at least it's a little better now than it was before.


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